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New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday (July 29), while fixing August 12 to start hearing pleas challenging the decision of the Election Commission of India (ECI) to carry out Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar in poll-bound Bihar, said it would step in if there is mass exclusion.
A bench comprising Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said this after the counsels appearing for the petitioners drew the attention of the court on the statement of the ECI that 65 lakh persons have not submitted the enumeration forms during the SIR exercise in Bihar.
The bench said it would hear the matter on August 12, 13 and directed the petitioners to file their written submissions by August 8.
Counsels appearing for the petitioners alleged that people are being left out from the draft list and they will not be able to exercise their right of voting.
The bench said that the ECI is a constitutional body and it has to abide by the law and petitioners can bring to the notice of the court if they have any concern.
“January 2025 list is the starting point if there was no SIR. Draft list will be published by ECI. Your apprehension is that 65 lakh odd voters will not feature...they (ECI) are seeking correction vis-a-vis 2025 entry. We are overviewing the thing as a judicial authority. If there is mass exclusion, we will immediately step in. Bring 15 people saying they are alive,” the bench told petitioners’ counsel.
The apex court on Monday, while refusing to stay the publication of draft electoral rolls in Bihar, which is to be published on August 1 by the ECI, asked the poll body to continue accepting Aadhaar Card and voter ID for the SIR exercise in Bihar in compliance with its order, saying both the documents had a "presumption of genuineness".
The bench had on Monday said that it would once for all decide the pleas challenging the ECI’s June 24, 2025 order to carry out SIR in poll-bound Bihar and had said that it would fix on Tuesday the time schedule to conduct the final hearing into the matter.
The bench said that it prima facie agreed with top court’s last order and the ECI accepted in its counter affidavit that Aadhaar Card, voter cards and ration cards were required to be accepted.
“As far as ration cards are concerned we can say they can be forged easily but Aadhaar and voter cards have some sanctity and have presumption of genuineness. You continue accepting these documents,” the bench told the ECI.
The apex court, during the last hearing, had taken on record the ECI’s submission that the list of documents for verification of election rolls in Bihar include 11 documents and it is not exhaustive and had asked the ECI to consider Aadhaar card, voter card and ration card as proof of identity.
The apex court is seized of pleas challenging the ECI’s June 24, 2025 order to carry out SIR in poll-bound Bihar and the petitioners include Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Manoj Jha, Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Mahua Moitra, CPI leader D Raja, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Arvind Sawant, Samajwadi Party's Harinder Singh Malik, Dipankar Bhattacharya of CPI (ML), JMM's Sarfraz Ahmed, activist Yogendra Yadav, PUCL and NGO Association of Democratic Reforms.
The ECI recently filed its counter-affidavit in response to pleas challenging the SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar, and has denied all the allegations of the petitioners and justified the exercise, saying the SIR exercise adds to the purity of the elections by weeding out ineligible persons from the electoral rolls.
